You can read more about the story on the St. Louis Bloggers’ Guild site, but I wanted to write a bit here as well. I’ll be plugging more of the guild’s events and get togethers as well.

This party didn’t wait for your’s truly to show. Bloggers had already snagged us the best corner in the place, right by the DJ. Lights hadn’t even dimmed and folks were already getting into groups, with conversation flowing like water.

Raquita and I cornered Jason Wall at one end for a while, while Bill Streeter and Dana held court at the other end. It was packed house as names you know and love in St. Louis blogging piled in. Soon there were beers, and burgers and appetizers in the mix, and then it got loud.

As it got dark, the lighting of the place really kicked in. Even the disco ball was lit up. The noise and music picked up at the same and folks had to huddle close to be heard. This made it seems even more like friends gathered together. Of course there were heated discussions, lazy chats, and plan hatching. Rumors of future events were heard as well.

Me? I’ve picked up some new viewpoints on religion, photography, and video blogging. I’m sure other’s got some interesting tidbits as well. And then there were cameras.

I’d brought mine and several others brought their’s. I know Rebeccas, Raquita, Jason, Dana, and more had cameras in hand. Bill even snagged some shots with his iPhone. We grabbed a couple of us manly man together as well.

Atomic Cowboy is a great venue for a get together, but the evening wasn’t without incident. One of our bloggers had their car broken in to. A few things were stolen but thankfully no one was hurt. The police showed up after the fact. It really puts a damper on things.

To sum up, I had a great time, even being a wall flower sort myself. I took a few photos, which you’ll see on my Flickr stream first but some will be here and a few over at St. Louis Bloggers Guild.

The postcards have been put out again. As in the previous weeks, here and here, the opt in was closed on Friday night. The postcards were written, stamped and dropped off at the post office yesterday. They should be leaving my local area on Monday, the 21st.

Twitter pals of mine are given the chance on Friday night to DM me and ask for a postcard. I’ve been of the mind that social networking needs to have more social involved. In that spirit I’ve been trying to visit in person, talk on the phone, send personal video messages, and doing this postcard project. At about 7 folks per week, this will take forever but it’s fun.

I’ve been asking if folks will at least tweet about the postcard or write a blog post. There’s no obligation though, and I hope no one stops themselves from asking over that worry.

So how do you get in? Friday night I’ll put out a call on Twitter for folks to DM me and mention postcard and provide an address. Sometime during the week though, there might be other chances to get in. I’ve also been taking special requests for friends.

Think you are too far away? I’ve sent cards overseas and to Canada. Don’t want to give out your home address? I’m okay with a P.O. Box or other safer address. Don’t want to give your real name? Just tell me how to address it.

I’m anxious to reach out to you too. How would you feel about an email in reply to your comment? Let me know.

i once seriously considered starting a web site dedicated entirely to caesar salad.

So here’s my 8 random facts:

I wear size 10 1/2 wide shoes and on rare occasions, size 11.

I’ve been married 24 years as of April 28th.

My wife and I have turned in about 140 Pepsi bottle cap codes.

I’ve eaten pizza in Rome.

I often considered changing my last name to that of my paternal grandfather.

I collected comics as a kid.

I collected belt buckles as a kid.

I have three granddaughters.

None of those things define me, but they all provide an outline off my life and experiences. I didn’t share stuff that’s terribly secret or too personal. I also tried not to share things I’d shared in this post.

I don’t normally pass these things on, but I’m passing this on to one of my best buds, Paisano. I do reserve the right to call upon more of my friends to take part though.

If you want to know more, just ask. If you want to share, leave me a comment with your 8 things or write your own blog post. I bet there are at least 8 things I don’t know about you.

Ironically, it has managed to spawn more innovations and hype—clients, web applications, memes, contests, meetups—than any of the big, bloated social networks. This is interesting because Twitter is not just a “web application”, which, literally, is an application that exists on and uses the Web. It’s an activity taking on many different forms in scattered locations, whose very nature seems viral, and whose openness seems almost unprecedented.

That was taken from this fun and informative read, The Inspiration that is Twitter at Wisdump. The article doesn’t just mention what Twitter has inspired but shows ton of great links with snapshots of a good deal of them.

Links to Twitter inspired services, mashups, and even t-shirts abound in the article. Want to poll your friends? Find the hottest links shared on Twitter? See the latest memes? Find the top followers and followed folks? Then the links are here in this post.

All this goodness is well organized into groups, with pictures to highlight quite a few of the services. My favorite stuff is the Twitter related t-shirts. Now I’ve got to go buy some. Do you sell any?! Give us some links.

Give this great article a perusal and learn more about Twitter and all the things it’s spawned.

St. Louis residents were awakened around 4:30 a.m. by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake centered several miles from West Salem, Illinois. The forceful shaking which lasted nearly a minute. As the shaking stopped, many St. Louis area Twitterers (and beyond) went to their keyboards to discuss damage. This was nearly 30 minutes before any word from the local media.

The full article, shared on the St. Louis Bloggers Guild, gives a first hand perspective of new media’s impact. Twitter was the source for folks to find out what the all the shake, rattle and roll was about. Waking to find pictures falling, windows rattling, and dogs going crazy, the TV and radio had nothing to say.

Has the world turned on it’s ear when the first place people are going for live and important news is online, perhaps to people they’ve never met? The Bhutto assassination news came to me with live reports relayed from the scene over Twitter. Now that’s speed. With the contacts I have, I can get the unabridged version of what’s said at many televised speaking engagements. It’s neat to hear a first had report of Hilary Clinton’s remarks as she’s snuck out the back at an appearance and a few stray reporters are there to see.

It’s not just Twitter were the news comes. Many of my contacts have not only written blogs, but video blogs, and can do live video recording on their phones. Talk about exciting to not just have someone tell me the news over Twitter, but to show me. What better than pictures captured at an event and instantly transmitted across the world.

Not only has new media brought us new tools, but a whole new sense of community to news. No longer is an overly primped strong chinned host the only face on the news. Becky down the street can bring me live coverage of her first walk for Cancer. Sanjib in overseas in the East can share what life is really like there, free from the cleansing of national and international television rules. Jim in NY can share pictures of the Pope, pictures you won’t see on the news. Want crowd reaction, why listen to some guy on NPR report on it. Get it from the folks in the crowd through Twitter, Utterz, and Qik.

Downsides you say, what about not coming from a professional? Heck, I’ll trade polished and good looking for raw footage any day. I’ll trade super quality video and sound for fresh and interesting as well. So no, maybe the guy sharing isn’t briefed in world political history, and can’t comment except about how he feels. But that guy bringing us a fresh view, and a view not likely tied to keeping his reporting job.

There’s one thing I forgot to mention though in my excitement to brag about new media. You can’t just tune in and turn it on and get the news. You can’t just know which of your contacts will bring it to your door, and not even where the news might be about.

How to get around that? Contacts and quality = value. Lots of contacts isn’t enough if most of them live down the street, though you might be surprised. Contacts who never engage in conversation and never share, they won’t be of much news value either. But you can cultivate great contacts. I’ll leave that for you the reader to think about how to do it.

To wrap up, is Twitter and such the end all and be all of getting your news? No, but it’s quickly becoming the place in my day to day life that I find out first about breaking news.

What about you? Has your online network of friends, contacts, and feeds brought new life into finding out about the world around you? Or are you certain that the only good news is brought through nice safe professional channels, like Fox and CNN? Where do you stand? Is a bloggers voice good enough? Or do you only read the newspaper? Tell me where you get your info.

Shameless plug for my newest blogging effort. I’m considering moving it to it’s own site when I move this blog in the near future. Do drop by, leave a comment, heckle me a bit, or find a way to send money. :)

Feel free to leave me suggestions, requests, or comments at the new site. It’s for you, my readers, to enjoy your time online just a bit more.